Somewhere along the way, we got the idea that we are supposed to think in perfectly neat single-file lines. We don't. We think in millions of idea bubbles. Sometimes, all those thought bubbles overwhelm us and we just have to let them pop. Don't hold it in. Speak. Be heard. You have a voice, too.

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Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Love, Bones

“Love is when your
puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.” – unknown

My dog is eating my house. Really, he is. He is actually
ingesting it. This is not a metaphor. But we’ll come back to this later.

At the beginning of summer vacation in 2013 we brought home
a puppy. It was the perfect time: I wasn’t teaching during the summer so I
would have all summer to train him, he would be with us all summer to train us,
and the girls were also out of school to love on him to their hearts’ content.
In fact, I brought him with me on the last day of school (the day I got him) to
pick them up. They had no idea we were getting a dog, so this was an enormous
surprise.

It wasn’t an impulse buy. For months I researched the kind
of dog I wanted: a Dogue de Bordeaux, also known as a French Mastiff, and known
to the world at large as the lovable scamp of a dog Hooch in the movie Turner and Hooch. In fact, after we
brought him home, I made the girls sit and watch that movie as a cautionary
tale. “This is why we need to train him now,”
I stressed. “He’s going to get big.”

He was seven weeks old and already weighed 14 pounds.

Look at that face!

He had the sweetest face I had ever
seen and eyes that just looked right into my soul. I knew when I saw him that
he was the one.

We named him Bones.

He is our boy; he is our baby. And we are his people.

During the summer, there were many accidents in the house.
It was easy to forget how young he was because he grew so large so quickly. He
doesn’t whimper or cry, so to my kids, he doesn’t ‘speak’. He uses his eyes to
communicate; they are extraordinarily expressive, but very quiet. So there were
accidents. I think every inch of my carpet has been cleaned with Resolve…twice.

He’s also stubborn.

"Nope...not gonna do any more..."﻿

When he’s done with something, he’s done, and that’s it. He
sits down, looks at me with those big eyes, and won’t budge no matter what I
demand he do. I have to remember that just as we don’t expect our kids to be
perfect carbon copies of us because they have their own personalities, he has
his own personality too. Once I allowed room for that in our training, it went
much more smoothly.

He became an instant part of the family and has always loved
to play.

The problem? Bones doesn’t know how big and
heavy he is. Right now, at eight months old, he weighs 83 pounds, and he thinks
he’s a lapdog. When he gets excited, he doesn’t jump (good training…) but he
does have a tendency to run head first into our legs. My guess is I have about
12 tiny stress fractures in my legs at any given time (I might be exaggerating
a little). He’s solid bone; his head is like a boulder. I always have bruises
on my legs because when we play, he steps on me. His paws are almost the size
of my hands.

"Of course she wants me on her lap. Why wouldn't she?"﻿

﻿

He loves us unconditionally. We have his trust. Every day
when we leave, when it’s cold or yucky outside, or (because this is Texas) if
it’s face-meltingly hot outside, Bones goes (mostly) willingly into his crate.
He stays there for hours. When we get home and let him out, he is so happy to
see us that he head-butts our legs, runs in crazy circles around the den, and
gives us hugs with his paws. He isn’t mad at us for leaving him in his crate
all day. There is no cold shoulder, no frosty silence. The happiness just pours
out of him. If you locked someone you love away for hours each day, or even
simply ignored them for hours at a time (with no locking away, because –really–
that’s wrong) that person would be angry. Dogs don’t get that way.

Somehow, they know something that we humans don’t. They know
how to automatically forgive.

Sometimes Bones stops by the couch, puts his front two feet
up on it, and leans his head into me, sort of like a drive-by hugging. Other
times he sits next to me, sags against the sofa, sighs, and offers me his paw.
He just wants me to hold it. When Emma is feeling ill, and laying on the couch,
he sits with her until she feels better. He is her best friend, and she can
whisper all her secrets in his floppy ears. He likes to lay on our feet so we
can’t move without him knowing it. We are his people. He is our dog.

Bones just sat there with Emma, for hours. His tiny friend was sick and he had to stand (sit?) guard.

Sharing secrets is one of the best parts of having a best friend. Here it looks like Bones is thinking, "No she di-int!"﻿

But into this paragon of heroic canine-wonder comes his
fatal flaw: he’s a chewer, which brings us back to the fact that he is actually
consuming my home. Have you heard the saying “he’s eating me out of house and
home?” In this case it’s the literal truth. Bones eats a lot, but despite the full belly, and the abundance of chew toys
he loves, he has decided to chew the house itself.

Exhibit A

The chair. This chair was in perfect condition
before Bones decided it had a lovely flavor. You may wonder why I didn’t notice
for a while that he was eating it. He didn’t leave much evidence. He wasn’t
simply chewing on it and letting the
bits fall to the floor. He was eating
it, then hoovering the floor for bits he missed.

Exhibit B

The back doors. No, I don’t live in a
condemned building (ignore the dogs’ nose art on the windows, please…I haven’t
cleaned it off in a while). But looking at these doors, you’d think this
building was about to collapse. Again, he’s eating
them. It’s hard to tell in this picture, but he’s almost completely removed the
wooden framing from the glass panes on the outside. He’s destroying the wooden
bit that separates the two doors (I have no idea what that’s called). Again,
very little evidence is left lying around.

Exhibit C

Finally, he’s removing the little strip that seals the space
between the doors. See? There’s a visible gap between the doors now. Oh my God.
I don’t even know how he got ahold of that in the first place.

So, my dog, at eight months old has demonstrated that he can
eat a house. But out of everything else he has demonstrated, this is the thing
I care about the least.

Why?

He is always ridiculously happy to see us. Always. How many
beings in your life can you say that about? He is never upset that we came
home. He is a constant source of recognition. Our arrival never goes unnoticed
or unheralded. The joy of our return seems to make his day.

He is unafraid to show he loves us. People often withhold
their affection until another person shows it first. How absurd. He isn’t
afraid of looking foolish or needy. I wish more people were like that.

He has no agenda. Bones doesn’t loves us in order to get
something. Dogs don’t think, “I’ll love my people if they do this,” or “I’ll
stop loving them if they do that.” No. He doesn’t hug us so we’ll pet him. He
just “is”, with no ulterior motive. Of course, he won’t turn down a treat when
it’s offered, either.

He teaches my children a new way of communication and to pay
attention. I tell my kids they have to listen to what Bones is telling them and
they look at me like I’m insane. Slowly, though, they are learning what that
means. His body language, the tilt of his head, his eyes…all of these things
communicate. It isn’t verbal speech, but it is how he ‘talks’.

He holds no grudges. Of course he gets his feelings hurt
sometimes if I have to tell him ‘no’, but he forgives quickly. Holding grudges
takes so much energy and effort. Dogs live so much in the present. Those 8
hours spent in the crate? Forgiven and forgotten the moment we let him out and
he gets to be with us again.

These things are so much more important than physical things
that can be replaced. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m upset about the doors. I can’t
afford to replace them yet, but when I do, they won’t be made of wood.)

I want my kids to have good role models. I worry that they will
look to certain celebrities for how to behave, how to perceive relationships,
or how to look. To try to forestall that, I talk to them -a lot- about what
things are important to emulate, about what makes a person good. Unconditional
love and support is at the top of the list. Amazingly enough, my kids get to
see an example of that all the time in Bones. My hope is the generosity of
spirit they see so freely given will leave a lasting impact on them.

Love, affection, and kindness: they mean the most no matter
what species you are.